DraKinski!

The opening credit sequence for Werner Herzog’s 1979 adaptation of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu features creepy mummified beings scored to beautiful music ...

and followed by a closeup of two adorably playful kittens. 

This film was made for me.

Quick Plot: Jonathan Harker (the wonderful Wings of Desire’s wonderful Bruno Wonderful Ganz) must head to the ominous castle of Count Dracula, a Mr. Burns-y hermit with --

Aw heck, you know the story. It’s Dracula, plain and simple. Mina is actually Lucy (just ‘cause) and she’s played by the gorgeous Isabelle Adjani, one of, perhaps, the only actresses that could dare face-play against the glorious insanity of Klaus Kinski. 

There’s a whole lot to love about Herzog’s film, so rather than a straightforward review (it’s DRACULA for goodness sake), here’s a list of all that works about it:

-The three lead performances are, plain and simple, perfect for the material. Ganz brings intrigue to a role usually reserved for pretty boys, Adjani’s facial expressions are straight out of the silent film era and Kinski is shockingly restrained (yet still typically creepy) as the titular demon

-Within five minutes of Nosferatu’s running time, it hit me that I needed to turn off all the lights in La Casa Dolls to fully appreciate the insanely beautiful camerawork. Take, for example, Jonathan’s trek to the castle. It’s a scene that goes on far longer than necessary, but between a fertile but empty landscape, shadowed ruins, and a cloudy night sky slowly parting to let in a haunting blue light, I could not take my eyes off the screen. 

This goes for just about every frame of the film, be it Lucy’s lonely beach walk or a disorienting overhead shot of coffins marching through a desolate village.

-Dracula’s boat trip is more painful than the movie Boat Trip, and I mean that as a huge compliment (and probably the only one that will ever involve the movie Boat Trip). The journey is usually skirted over or entirely ignored in most adaptations, but Herzog gives it plenty of weight, letting the trip herald in a deadly plague that wreaks havoc over Lucy’ and Jonathan’s home town. This eventually gives us an almost apocalyptic view as Lucy roams an emptying village and the few remaining citizens resign themselves to impending death.

-Though I won’t spoil the ending, it’s certainly worth acknowledging that it departs from the usual Dracula finale and wow, it’s pretty great.

Low Points

Word on the cinema street is that Herzog wasn’t overly nice to those thousands of rat cast members, which makes me a little sad

Lessons Learned

Pigs do not stop walking to poop. I did not know this fact

One should probably not dip one’s toes inside a mysterious rat-infested coffin. I’m not a doctor or anything, but this advice seems sound

You know, there are starving children in China who would kill to eat those grapes. (Note: this comment is directed towards vampires who seem to thrive on wasting decadent banquets)

Rent/Bury/Buy

I rented the German version of Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht through Netflix, since general consensus is that it’s superior (Herzog filmed an English version simultaneously with the same cast, also available as a separate disc). Clearly, I recommend this film with all the muster I’ve got. Dracula tales don’t generally do too much for me, but Herzog’s approach--essentially, creating an homage to Murnau’s original--is incredibly striking from both a visual and audio standpoint. The music is gripping and the imagery, absolutely breathtaking. Add in a Ka-razzzzzy Kinski (well-supported by a fantastic Adjani and Ganz) and you have a film that’s simply a joy to experience.

I like my plague the way I like my coffee/men: black & Beany. Um...

Ever since I stayed up late four weeknights in the 6th grade to watch ABC’s adaptation of The Stand, I’ve had something you might call ‘a thing’ for plagues. Whether it’s a movie like Carriers or a novel like Blindness, the idea of infection sparing no one is just such a ripe and rich premise for any horror film.

Toss in the word bubonic--easily one of my favorites--and  you’ve got the ingredients for one kicking movie. Oh, and did I mention Christopher Triangle Smith is behind the camera?

Yes, you could easily say my expectations for Black Death was about as high as the body count of the actual Black Death.

Quick Plot: It’s 1348, a great time for rats, mead, and long hair but a crappy time for life expectancy. A deadly sickness is tearing through Europe leaving nothing but paranoid Christians and rotting corpses in its path. 

Enter Oswald, a young monk torn between his village love and his word to God. Fearing the worst, he sends his girlfriend home to the woods where she plans to wait for him every morning as he decides where his true heart lies. 

A sign comes in the form of the rarely shampooed Sean Bean playing Ulric, a knight leading a tribe of Christian mercenaries into the woods to capture a rumored necromancer. As they venture deeper into the wild, they encounter violent savages and eventually, Black Book’s lovely Carice van Houten’s Langiva, a mysterious beauty lording over a gang of pagans.

Christopher Smith has one of the most impressive resumes of any genre filmmaker working today, so the idea of putting one of my favorite film premises in his hands is beyond exciting. In a way, unless Black Death met Wizard of Oz standards, it was probably never going to truly be as good as I wanted it to be.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t like Black Death. It had body boils, angry mobs, David Warner, a bleak ending and Sean Bean snarling. Of COURSE I enjoyed the movie. But coming from the man who made a beautiful day of sailing into a time warping horror complete with a baghead killer, Black Death fell a tad short of being the bubonic bonanza I was hoping for. 

High Points

One of the interesting aspects of any film set pre-1700 is the necessary lack of firearms. Black Death gives us a great moment of dialogue where the young monk learns from a grizzled knight about the mercy knife and how a carefully placed stab wound serves as the medieval headshot for merciful killings

SPOILERS

I drifted off a bit from Black Death during its somewhat disappointing third act, but I found the epilogue to be absolutely great. Having Oswald, our young and lovelorn hero, 

transform into a dark witch-hunting murderer (with Episode 2 Anakin Skywalker hair to boot) was devastatingly brilliant, making it a spiritual prequel to films like Mark of the Devil and Witchfinder General

The only good thing I was ever able to say about the awful Hitcher remake was that hey, at least the truck stretch out was cool. So it’s kind of neat that Black Death, another Sean Bean vehicle, gets to do the limb pulling, period style


THUS ENDETH SPOILERS

Low Points

While some of the sound design is haunting (ew death gurgles!) I find it hard to believe that every time sword moves it makes that slicey sound

There’s a fantastic shot when one of Ullric’s men is crucified by the pagans, as Smith’s camera follows him face-on in a frenetic Wicker Man-like final prayer. The problem is that this type of moment is far too rare. With a hauntingly fogged landscape and some set pieces that speak for themselves (hooded executioners marching on, corpses a’plenty) it’s kind of a shame that Black Death doesn’t feel truly immersed in the natural madness like, say, Vinyan or Aguire: The Wrath of God.

Lessons Learned

Christians appreciate the concept of betrayal

The longbow is quicker to load AND farther in flight. Take THAT buck of tar!

It’s indeed possible to smell a lie on a man

As Red Riding Hood taught us well, eye makeup was never more lovely than during pre-Industrial Revolution times

The Winning Line

“I look forward to shagging your mother’s ass in hell”

Who knew medieval times were filled with such great trash mama talk!

Rent/Bury/Buy

Black Death is certainly worth a lights-off watch, particularly since it’s currently streaming on Instant Watch. My slight disappointment probably stems more from the fact that I just watched Werner Herzog’s drop dead gorgeous Nosferatu (review coming soon) and was slightly spoiled by his masterful use of medieval times, plagues, and European forestry. So Black Death ain’t Nosferatu, but it’s still an engrossing period horror refreshing for our age.

A Real Friend Is Always There To Lend a Chainsaw

One of the many reasons why I love Toy Story so much is how Woody (that genial and jealous cowboy voiced by Jim Hanks' brother) comes to accept and love the fact that his sole purpose in life is to be there for his master and friend. As kids, we deal with a lot of opposition from parents, siblings, teachers, and classmates, but save for a loyal dog, nobody listens to us with quite the same selfless dedication as our Pound Puppies, baby dolls, prized action figures, or, in the case of today’s film, imaginary friends.

A Real Friend is another 75 minute selection from Spain’s 6 Films to Keep You Awake, a 2006 collection that puts America’s Masters of Horror to the test. Like The Christmas Tale , (the wicked little gem that takes up the flip side of this DVD), it finds a point in childhood where the monsterish meets reality and lets an odd little story unfold with speed.

Quick Plot: Estrella (Nerea Inchausti) is a horror loving bookworm living a lonely existence with her single mother. While Mom Angela (Goya Toledo) works as an efficient, if not overly compassionate nurse, Estrella passes the time chit chatting with pals that bear striking resemblances to Leatherface, Mr. Hyde, Nosferatu, and a few other familiar faces rarely rearing their homicidal heads in 2nd grade classrooms.

All’s fun and adorable until Estrella meets a daybreaking vampire who seems a tad too interested (at least, by our estimation) in her family’s homelife. Is this balding duster-clad pale man another innocent figment of our heroine’s rich imagination? A deeper creation breaking through, or a real life menace from her mother’s mysterious past?

Like The Christmas Tale, A Real Friend is another distinct, somewhat sweet, and slightly disturbing treat that doesn’t wear out its welcome. It presents a neat little premise sold early in the film’s running by fine performances and plenty of empathy for a young character most horror fans can easily relate to by nudging their inner children awake.

That being said, A Real Friend never really grabs the reins to steer the audience in a clear direction. We’re fully invested in Estrella, but filmmaker Enrique Urbizu doesn’t really seem confident in whose narrative voice should be pushing the final act. We want to learn more about Angela’s connection to the increasingly unsettling villain, but we also need Estrella’s personal posse for the big finale. Instead of finding a fluid method of connecting these threads, Urbizu instead veers off to follow a third character we barely know. In the end, we never even find out exactly how our two leads feel about the bloody climax, or--more importantly--just how much control they had over its outcome.

High Points

I don’t know what’s in school lunch milk or pre-natal vitamins from the early 1990s, but following both this and The Christmas Tale, it seems Spain is the new breeding ground for effortlessly sensitive and sympathetic child actors

Much like The Christmas Tale, A Real Friend finds a one-of-a-kind, yet somehow familiar voice in reintroducing the horror icons from our past into a very different and much kinder--or is it?--new world.

Middle Points

The closing scene initially felt like a letdown and a cheat, but the longer it’s brewed in my head, the more oddly disturbing it seems to be for its strange implications on what may actually be going on inside Estrella’s mind

Low Points

Despite an extremely likable protagonist, I felt oddly detached from A Real Friend and I’ve yet to fully identify why. Perhaps it was the aforementioned character switch or lack of a grounded reality, but I ultimately found myself watching this film from a distance instead of actively engaging in its story.

Lessons Learned

Nothing ruins a day at the beach more than finding your personality-less teacher misguidedly putting the moves on your hot mom

Wine is not a drink

If you’re going to spend most of your time with imaginary friends, do yourself a favor and arm them well

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’ve already pledged my Buy support to the 6 Films series, and though I didn’t enjoy A Real Friend with quite the same level of enthusiasm as The Christmas Tale, it’s still an intriguing and thoroughly different film from your typical Hollywood studio offering. I’ll toss out a disclaimer to say I was a tad too tired while watching A Real Friend (and growing more and more antsy after holding onto the Netflix DVD for over 2 weeks) and may have been too low in my post-holiday spiritless daze to fully appreciate the image of Leatherface fighting the urge to pull a little girl’s braids. The film isn't perfect, nor is it revolutionary or the mark of a visionary honing his craft. It is, however, something new, charming, and more than worthy of your 75 minutes.